1. Field of Invention
The present invention is directed to a method and a system for routing telephone calls based on conditions of electronic devices associated with the party being called. More particularly, the present invention is related to a method and system for forwarding calls of a party to an alternative telephone or beeper after it is determined that, based on the conditions of the party's electronic devices, the party is unavailable at the location where the electronic devices are situate.
2. Description of Related Art
In today's telecommunications industry, it is well recognized that a party to whom a call is directed may not be available at that particular location to accept the call. To resolve this problem, manufacturers of telecommunications devices have produced back-up systems such as telephone answering machines, voice mail services or even call forwarding services. Although these devices and services eventually alerts the party being called, on some occasions, the communication reaches the called party in an untimely manner. For example, in an emergency situation, it might be necessary to contact the party being called immediately. Leaving a message on an answering machine or in a voice mail system is inadequate in such an emergency situation. The call forwarding service might be adequate but it has drawbacks.
To use a call forwarding service, the user must first know the forwarding telephone number where he/she will be located at some future time. The user must then input this forwarding number into the telephone system. A major drawback is that the user might forget to input the forwarding telephone number into the telephone system.
Additionally, the user might change locations. Therefore, the user must cancel the previous forwarding telephone number and input a new forwarding telephone number at the desired location.
To alleviate these problems, the user can subscribe to a mobile telephone service. Now, telephone calls can now be forwarded to the user's mobile telephone number. However, the user might be at a location where mobile telephone services are inaccessible and that other ways of communicating with the user, for example, by regular telephone, would be more desirable. In this case, the user must remember to cancel the forwarded telephone number of the mobile telephone and input the telephone number of the more desirable regular telephone.
There is a need in the telecommunications industry to automatically route or forward calls to a party being called. There is also a need that the party being called would not be required to remember to input and/or change forwarding telephone numbers into the telephone system in order to use call forwarding services. By automatically routing or forwarding telephone calls of the party being called to expected locations or other communication devices, the party being called is now more capable of receiving urgent or emergency calls without being required to input and/or change the forwarding telephone number. These needs are satisfied by the present invention.